RESEARCHER/P.I. DOCUMENTATION
Introduction
The Experiment Management System is used for the scheduling and management of
research participants and the studies they participate in. Participants, researchers,
principal investigators, and instructors all use the system for their respective purposes. As
a researcher, you can set up your studies in the system, schedule the sessions (timeslots)
when participants may participate, and grant or revoke credit after the session. All of this
is handled through a simple web-based interface that you can access at any time, from
any popular web browser.
The system is highly configurable by the administrator, to enforce the rules for the
research participant pool exactly as your organization desires. It should be noted that the
documentation herein may refer to features that are not enabled on your system. Contact
your local administrator, whose contact information appears at the bottom of every page
on the system, for more information.
System Basics
In the system, you create studies. Each study may have a number of timeslots, which are
the times when you plan to run the study. Participants sign up for the timeslots by
viewing a list of studies and available timeslots. You grant or revoke credit to participants
after the session occurs.
Principal Investigator Special Note
This documentation applies to both researchers and principal investigators (P.I.s), when
P.I. support is enabled by the administrator. A P.I. can perform all the same functions on
a study as a researcher. This allows a P.I. to operate in an oversight role and monitor the
progress of their studies, and step in on behalf of the researcher when necessary. Because
the privileges are the same, throughout this documentation, the term “researcher” can be
used interchangeably with “principal investigator” except where otherwise noted. If the
P.I. feature is enabled, then all studies must have a P.I. specified.
Getting Started
The system works best if you use any popular web browser that is less than 2 years old,
like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. It will work with other web browsers, and with
older versions of popular web browsers, however the layout may not be as clean. No
functionality will be lost by using an older web browser.
On this system, it is not necessary to use the Back button. You can always use the toolbar
on the top to navigate to anywhere on the site.
Logging In
Your administrator will provide you with a username and password to login to the site, as
well as the URL (web address). When you go to the front page of the site (the login
page), you may see a link to request an account. This form is only for participants. Do not
use this form to request an account, as participant accounts have an entirely different set
of privileges, and the privileges are not appropriate for a researcher.
http://roanoke.sona-systems.com
EMS login page link
Figure 1 - Login Page
Once you login, you may be asked to review and acknowledge your organization’s
human subject policy. If required by the administrator, you will need to acknowledge this
once every 6 months. You will see the Main Menu after you acknowledge the policy.
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Figure 2 - Main Menu
Your login (also known as a session) will expire after a certain period of inactivity,
usually 20. This is done for security purposes. If this happens, you can always log in
again. When you are done using the system, it is better to explicitly log out, to prevent
any problems that may arise if someone uses your computer before the session expires.
Retrieving a Lost Password
If you have forgotten or do not have your password, and the feature is enabled on the
system, then you may choose to have your password emailed to you. You will see an
option on the main login page if this feature is enabled. Your password will be emailed
after you submit the form, and should arrive in your email box momentarily. If you
provided an alternate email address (see the Email Address Options section of this
documentation), it will be sent there. Otherwise, it will be sent to your main email
address, which is derived from your user ID. If you requested that the system email a
password to you, and it has not arrived after 30 minutes, then check in your email
program’s junk mail folder in case the email was delivered there.
Logging Out
When you are done using the system, choose Logout from the top toolbar to log out. You
are now logged out. It is always a good security practice to close all your web browser
windows as well, especially if you are using a computer that is shared by others.
Changing Your Password and Other Information
If you would like to change your password or other information about yourself, choose
My Profile from the top toolbar. If you would like to change your password, type your
new password (twice, for confirmation) in the provided boxes. If you would not like to
change your password, simply leave these boxes empty.
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If you change your password, please be sure to select a password you do not use on any
other systems or websites. This is good computing practice, and especially important as
in some cases, your password may be sent over email.
Figure 3 - Updating Your Profile
It is recommended you provide your phone number and office location, as most human
subject committees require that this information be made available to research
participants. If you are a researcher, this contact information will be displayed to
participants when they view information about the study. If you are a principal
investigator, this contact information will be displayed if a participant explicitly chooses
to view it (since the researcher is the primary point of contact for a study).
Researchers may also choose to receive a daily reminder (by email) with information
about all of their study sessions scheduled for the following day.
Email Address Options
There are certain events in the system which will cause an email notification to be sent to
you. Most often, these are notifications that a participant has signed up or cancelled their
sign-up for your studies, but there are a few other cases where it may be used as well. The
email address is also displayed to the participant when they view information about the
study, in case they need to contact you with questions.
Working with Studies
Most of your time on the system will be spent, not surprisingly, using the study-related
features of the system. Be sure to read this section closely, in its entirety, as there are
special features and situations you should be aware of.
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Studies for Pay
You may have a situation where participants are compensated for their participation in
the study. They may or may not also receive credit for the study. If the study is not for
credit, you may set it up as a pay-only study and specify the compensation amount. If
participants are compensated and they receive credit, you should set it up as a credit
study and indicate additional compensation in the study’s information section.
Regardless of the type of study, after a participant participates in a study (including
studies that are for pay only), you should still go into the system and indicate their
participation by noting their participation or no-show when viewing their sign-up This
allows the system to properly enforce certain restrictions on the participant and their
studies, like pre-requisite and disqualifier study restrictions.
Two-Part Studies
You may create a two-part study in the system. Often, these are studies involving
memory research, where the participant must return a specified number of days after the
first session. When creating a study, you may specify the day range for the second part of
the study (e.g. 7 to 10 days after the first part). Participants are required to sign up for
both sessions at the same time, to reduce the chance they will forget to sign up for the
second part. Each part of a two-part study may have a different credit value and duration,
but each part must be the same type – either both parts are for credit or both parts are for
compensation. Online studies may not be two-part studies.
You may specify that the second part of the study must be scheduled to take place at the
exact same time as the first part (on a different date), or at any time on the dates that are
the specified number of days after the first part.
You should ensure there are enough available timeslots for both parts of the study, or
participants will be prevented from signing up for either part. Participants may cancel
either part of their sign-up if necessary. If they cancel the first part, the second part is
automatically cancelled as well. If they cancel only the second part and the first part has
already occurred, and they would like to participate in the second part later, you will need
to manually sign them up for the second part (if you are allowed to do so), or ask the
administrator to handle this.
If you grant a no-show for the first part of a two-part study, the second part of that
participant’s sign-up will not be cancelled automatically, but you will be reminded of the
situation in case you would like to cancel the second part. The cancellation is not
automatic as there are some situations where automatic cancellation is not desirable.
Adding a Study
Some researchers choose to set up their studies in the system before they have received
the proper approvals (usually from their IRB) to run the study. This is supported in the
system. You can setup a study but specify that is it not visible to participants (this is the
approved setting). That way, as soon as your approval is received, you can simply make
the study visible and everything else is already prepared. You can also post a study and
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make it visible immediately, if that is appropriate. Some systems will be configured in
such a manner that only the administrator can approve the study, in which case you will
need to contact the administrator to do so.
Figure 4 - Adding a New Study
To add a study, choose the Add New Study option from the top toolbar. You will need to
pick from four possible types of studies. Please choose this carefully as you are not able
to change this later.
After you choose, the study type you’ll see a form asking for more information. You will
need to fill out a number of fields, which are explained in the following table. Some of
the fields listed below may not appear, depending on how your system is configured and
the type of study you selected. All fields must be filled out unless otherwise noted.
Field
Study Name
Explanation
A short name for the study. This is how the
study is identified throughout the system.
Most systems are configured so studies
show in a random order to participants
(choose Your Studies on the toolbar and it
will state at the bottom of the resulting
page if they are displayed in random order),
so there is no advantage in choosing a
study name that might put it at the top of an
alphabetical list. You should consult with
your administrator if there is a naming
convention to be followed when naming
studies. Study names must be unique, and
you will be prevented from adding a study
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if there is already another study in the
system with the same name. A study name
may be up to 100 characters in length.
This is a short one or two line description
of the study. This short description will be
displayed to participants when they view
the entire list of studies, so you may want
to list the most pertinent details here.
Studies configured for payment usually
have the compensation information
included here, particular if the payment
varies based certain outcomes. This field
may be optional, and can be up to 255
characters in length.
This can be a rather lengthy description
about the study, and it will show if a
participants clicks on the study to get more
information, before they sign up. You may
include basic HTML in this area, but please
be sure you know what you are doing (ask
your IT department for help if you are
unsure). If you would like to add a
carriage-return (paragraph break), simply
type in “<p>” (without the quotes).This
field may be optional. The maximum
length of this field is 15,000 characters.
If there are any restrictions on who may
participate (for instance, only those who
are left-handed), list them here. Otherwise,
leave the field as-is. If you list any
restrictions, these will be displayed on the
list of studies, when participants view a list
of all available studies. Note the system
does not enforce these restrictions, but it is
expected a participant will only sign up for
a study in which they are qualified, since
they would otherwise fail to receive credit.
In most cases, you will leave this field as-is
and set prescreen participation restrictions,
which you can do after you add the study.
This field may be up to 245 characters in
length.
If there are studies a participant must
participate in before participating in your
study, choose them here. You may select
multiple studies, and on most systems, you
Brief Abstract (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
Detailed Description (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
Eligibility Requirements
Pre-Requisites (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
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hold down the Ctrl key and click the
desired studies.
You may specify that participants must
have participated in all of the studies you
specify, or at least one of the studies
specified.
The system will handle enforcement of the
pre-requisites in a strict or lenient fashion
depending on how your system is
configured. In strict enforcement mode, the
participant must have received credit for
(participated in) the pre-requisite studies. In
lenient enforcement mode, the participant
must only be scheduled to participate in the
pre-requisite studies (it is assumed they
will go on to complete the pre-requisite
studies). You can ask your administrator
how this is configured, if it is of concern. If
your system is in lenient enforcement
mode, and a participant cancels a necessary
pre-requisite for you study (they are
warned of this situation), and you have
configured your study so that the researcher
will receive notifications of cancellations
or sign-ups, then the researcher will receive
notification of the pre-requisite problem
and can contact the participant if necessary.
If there is a long list of studies for this
setting, an Enlarge List button will appear.
You can click this to make the list of
studies larger and thus easier to click on.
Depending on how your system is
configured (Pre-Requisite/Disqualifier
Display setting), participants may or may
not see which studies you have specified as
pre-requisites when they go to view your
study.
If there are any studies a participant must
not have participated in, please select them
here. You may select multiple studies. The
system will handle enforcements of the
restriction, during the sign-up process.
Disqualifiers (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
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If a study has some other study listed as a
disqualifier, and a participant signs up for
this study, then they will be prevented from
signing up for the disqualifier study.
If there is a long list of studies for this
setting, an Enlarge List button will appear.
You can click this to make the list of
studies larger and thus easier to click on.
Depending on how your system is
configured (Pre-Requisite/Disqualifier
Display setting), participants may or may
not see which studies you have specified as
disqualifiers when they go to view your
study.
If you would only like participants enrolled
in certain courses to participate in your
study, select the eligible courses here.
Participants who are not in at least one of
the courses you selected will not see the
study when they go to view the list of
available studies. You may choose No
Restrictions if you would like to make the
study available to participants in all
courses.
Course Restrictions
If there is a long list of courses for this
setting, an Enlarge List button will appear.
You can click this to make the list of
courses larger and thus easier to click on.
There is a limit to how many courses can
be listed as course restrictions for a study,
and the limit is somewhere between 60 and
80 courses. The limit is variable depending
on a few factors, and the system will
simply not save the course restrictions for
any courses which would take it over the
limit.
The amount of time, in minutes, that each
study session will take. If you are setting
up a 2-part study, then this setting applies
to the first part of the study. For online
studies, this should be an estimate of how
long participants can expect the study to
Duration
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Timeslot Usage Limit
Preparation
Invitation Code (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
Is this a web-based study? (this feature
might be disabled on your system)
Should survey participants be identified
only by a random, unique ID code?
take, so that they can plan accordingly.
Depending on how your system is
configured, you may see an item that
specifies the maximum number of study
session hours available to this study. This
value is set by the administrator, and only
the administrator can adjust it. To
determine the current session usage for a
study, go to the Add A Timeslot page for
the study, and the usage will be listed there.
Enter any advanced preparation a
participant must do here (e.g. “do not eat 2
hours before session”). If there are no
preparation requirements, leave this field
as-is.
If you would like to have a special sign-up
password for this study, enter it here. This
is known as an invitation code, and applies
just for this study. Participants must know
the invitation code to sign up for this study.
This is often used in cases where the
researcher wants to personally select
participants, so the researcher only
provides the invitation code to the desired
participants. Invitation codes are not case
sensitive.
If you do not need an invitation code, leave
this field blank.
If this is a web-based (online) study,
choose the type of online study it is. If you
have set up the study on another website,
you should note the study is administered
outside the system. If you want to set up an
online survey study to be administered by
the system, select the appropriate option.
This only applies to web-based studies
administered by the system, and only if
participant anonymous ID codes are not
already turned on system-wide. If set to
Yes, participants are only identified by a
unique system-assigned ID code, to protect
their privacy. Participants are also notified
of this when they start the survey. Once
enabled, this setting cannot be changed
after participants have taken the survey, as
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Study URL
Credits/Pay
a matter of privacy protection.
The URL (web address, usually starting
with http://) for your study. This is only
required for web-based studies
administered outside the system.
If you are setting up a web-based study
outside the system, and would like the
system to pass a unique identifier in the
URL so you may easily identify
participants, add the text
%SURVEY_CODE% in the URL where you
would like the identifier to be placed. This
is discussed in further detail in the WebBased (Online) Studies section of this
documentation.
Enter the number of credits or
compensation for the study. A value of 0 is
acceptable, and may be desired in cases
where the study is part of a set of studies,
where only the final study is credit-earning.
Please see the Studies for Pay section of
this documentation for more information
on how to fill out this field in the case of
for-pay studies. If the study has a credit
value, the credit value specified must be
evenly divisible by the credit increment
specified. For example, if the increment is
0.5, then the study can have credit values
like 1 and 1.5, but not 0.75.
If you are setting up a 2-part study, this is
the value for the first part of the study.
After a study has sign-ups, you may not
change the credit value of the study.
However, the administrator can change the
credit value, in certain situations.
Is this a 2-part study?
A study may not be changed between a
study for credit and for payment, after it
has been created.
Select Yes or No if this is a 2-part study.
You can only decide this when creating a
study (not when editing it), and this setting
may not be changed after the study is
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Credits/Pay, Part 2
Part 2 Duration
Part 2 Scheduling Range
Part 2 Scheduling Leniency
Researcher(s)
created. See “Two-Part Studies” for more
information.
Enter the number of credits or
compensation for part 2 of the study, if this
is a two-part study (the value is ignored
otherwise). A value of 0 is acceptable, and
may be desired in cases where the study is
part of a set of studies, where only the final
study is credit-earning. Please see the
Studies for Pay section of this
documentation for more information on
how to fill out this field in the case of forpay studies. If the study has a credit value,
the credit value specified must be evenly
divisible by the credit increment specified.
For example, if the increment is 0.5, then
the study can have credit values like 1 and
1.5, but not 0.75.
The amount of time, in minutes, that part 2
of the study will take.
Specify the number of days (as a range)
after part 1 is scheduled, that part 2 should
be scheduled. This setting only applies to
two-part studies. The range may be the
same value (e.g. “between 7 and 7 days”) if
desired, but must be a whole number. See
“Two-Part Studies” for more information.
In some cases, you may want to ensure that
the participant schedules the second part of
the study to take place at exactly the same
time (on a different date) as the first part. If
so, choose Yes for this option. If there is
some flexibility so they can sign up for any
time within the Part 2 Scheduling range,
choose No for this option.
Select the researcher for this study. Most
likely, this is you, and your name will
automatically be selected. If you are a
researcher, then you may not change who
the researcher is (the P.I. for the study, as
well as the administrator, can change the
researcher). Depending on how your
system is configured, you may be able to
specify multiple researchers for a study. If
you specify multiple researchers, each
researcher has full control over the study.
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The pulldown box lists only users who are
researchers.
Principal Investigator (this feature might be Select the Principal Investigator for this
disabled on your system)
study. The person you select will have full
access to the study. If you see this option,
then you must select a P.I.
IRB Approval Code
IRB Approval Expiration Date
Approved?
The pulldown box lists only users who are
principal investigators.
Enter the IRB approval code here. This
field is displayed to the administrator to
help them keep track of studies. This field
may be required depending on how your
system is configured.
The date when IRB approval expires. This
field may not appear if your system is not
configured for it. If it does appear, you
must provide a valid expiration date. The
system will prevent you from adding new
timeslots to take place after this date, and
your study will become inactive (not
approved and thus not visible to
participants) after this date. You may not
make a study active if the IRB approval has
expired. Only the administrator can change
the IRB approval expiration date, once it
has been entered, which is why it defaults
to blank to force you to choose a date. You
may specify a date up to 5 years in the
future.
Select Yes if this study should show up on
the list of studies which participants may
sign up for. Ensure you have received the
necessary approvals to run the study before
choosing Yes. A study must be Approved
and Active to show up on the list of studies
which participants may sign up for.
If you select No, the study will not be
visible to participants.
Some systems are configured such that
only the administrator can approve a study.
If that is the case, you should contact the
administrator when you are ready to make
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Email Approval Notice? (visible to
administrators only)
Active Study?
the study visible to participants – and a
handy form is provided on the page to do
so. As a researcher, you can always make a
approved study invisible to participants (by
making it not approved), but you may need
the administrator to make it visible again, if
so desired. In addition, if you change key
items about the study, specifically the name
or descriptions, the study will
automatically be made invisible to
participants, until the administrator
reapproves it (if the system is configured
this way). The reason for this is that many
IRBs approve very specific language for
study names and descriptions, so the
administrator needs to ensure the study is
in proper compliance.
This Yes/No option will appear if the
administrator is adding or updating the
study, and it is not already approved. If
they select Yes to Email Approval Notice
and they approve the study (set Approved
to Yes) at the same time, then an email will
be sent to all researchers for the study, to
notify them that their study was just
approved.
Select Yes if this study is in progress. You
must select Yes and the study must be
Approved if you want the study to show up
to participants so they can sign up for it.
If a study is Not Approved but is Active,
then it does not show up (to participants)
on the listing of studies, but it is accessible
through other links if the participant has
participated in it before and they are
viewing their participation history (in case
the participant has follow-up questions
about the study). It will also show up on
the study information page (for an
individual study) when it is listed as a prerequisite or disqualifier for a study.
The reason to select No is if the study is
being kept for historical purposes, but
should not show up to participants on the
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Should the Researcher receive an email
notification when a participant signs up or
cancels?
list of studies they may sign up for. Often,
this is done so the system can enforce prerequisites, where the inactive study is a prerequisite for an active study.
If set to Yes, the researcher for this study
will receive an email notification whenever
a participant signs up, or cancels their signup, for this study. The email notification
will be sent to an email address based on
the information the researcher has
provided. See the Email Address Options
section of this documentation for more
information on how the email address is
determined. Emails will contain the first 50
characters of the study name as part of the
subject line, to make it easy to sort the
emails with an email program that supports
filtering based on subject line.
If set to Yes, researchers will also receive a
notification if the system is in lenient prerequisite enforcement mode and a
participant cancels a study that was a prerequisite for the current study. Read the
section on Pre-Requisites in this table for
more information about this situation.
Researchers at Timeslot-Level
Automatic Credit Granting
Emails are sent to all researchers specified
for the study, unless a specific researcher is
assigned to the timeslot that the email
notification is being sent about. See
Timeslots Linked to Specific Researchers
for more information.
If set to Yes, it will be possible (but not
required) to assign a specific researcher
(from the list of researchers for the study)
to a timeslot. If set to No, then it is
assumed that all researchers (assigned to
the study) are responsible for all timeslots.
See Timeslots Linked to a Specific
Researcher for more information. This
option only appears if the system is
configured to allow multiple researchers
per study.
If set to Yes, timeslots that are more than a
specified number of hours old and still in
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the Awaiting Action state will be changed
to a credit grant. The check for timeslots in
this situation is made only once per day. If
an automatic credit grant is done, you may
still change it later if necessary.
Can a participant sign up for this study
more than once? (this feature might be
disabled on your system)
Private Comments
Research Alternative?
Participant Sign-Up Deadline (this feature
might be disabled on your system)
Participant Cancellation Deadline (this
feature might be disabled on your system)
For online external web studies, the credit
grant will take place the specified number
of hours after the timeslot (participation
deadline) has occurred, so this feature is
generally not useful in this situation. This
option will not appear for online survey
studies (within the system) because credit
granting generally occurs automatically,
immediately after the participant completes
the survey.
If you would like to allow participant to
sign up (and receive credit) for your study
more than once (at different times), choose
Yes. Otherwise, choose No.
If No is chosen, participants may only sign
up for the study more than once if they
previously failed to show up for the study
(a no-show).
This is an optional area where you may
enter any comments or notes about the
study, which are only visible to the
researchers for this study, and not to
participants. The maximum length of this
field is 3,000 characters.
If set to Yes, then this study is considered a
research alternative study. Some
participants, for various reasons (typically
for accruing too many unexcused noshows, or being unable to consent to
participate in studies), may be restricted
such that they can only sign up for research
alternative studies. Only an administrator
may change this value (the default is No).
Enter the deadline before the study is to
occur that the participant may sign up, in
whole hours.
Enter the deadline before the study is to
occur that the participant may cancel their
existing sign up, in whole hours. Generally
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the cancellation deadline should be shorter
than the sign-up deadline, so participants
can easily cancel an accidental sign-up.
Once you have filled out the appropriate information, save it and the system will be
updated immediately with the information. Your next step is likely to add timeslots
(sessions). See the Working with Timeslots section of this documentation for more
information.
If you need to update this study, see the following Updating a Study section of this
documentation. If you would like to add participation restrictions based on prescreen
responses, you can do so when you update the study (see Prescreen Participation
Restrictions).
Updating a Study
You may update any of your studies at any time. To do so, choose My Studies from the
top toolbar, and you will see a list of your studies. Click on the desired study, and choose
the Change Study Information link.
You will see a form remarkably similar to the one you used to add the study. A few
options may no longer be changeable depending on the status of the study (e.g., if
participants have already signed up for it). The fields shown are all the same as when you
added the study. See the Adding a Study section of this documentation for an explanation
of those fields.
The changes you make will be will be take effect immediately after they are saved. When
changes are made, if administrator re-approval is required before a study is made visible
to participants, then you should contact the administrator to request re-approval once you
have made all your changes. Changing the following fields may require a re-approval:
study name, brief abstract, detailed description, eligibility requirements (the text field, not
specific restrictions like prescreen restrictions, study pre-requisites/disqualifiers, or
course restrictions), duration, preparation, credit value (for credit studies only). There
will be a notice on the Change Study Information to warn if re-approval may be required,
and they system will also notify you, after making changes, if the study is now in need of
re-approvl.
If you need to change the credit value for a study, and there is no option to do so, this
means the study already has at least one participant signed up for it. You cannot change
the credit value when a study is in this situation because there is no easy way to handle
past credits for the same study (e.g. should old credit grants for the same study be
adjusted to reflect the new credit value, or kept the same?). If the study is nearing the end
of its run, and variable credit granting is enabled, then the easiest solution is to grant the
new credit value to participants who sign up in the future. If you prefer that the credit
value is changed for the entire study, contact the administrator, who can make the change
for you under certain conditions (which depend on the credit status of existing sign-ups
for the study).
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Deleting a Study
You may delete a study only if participants have not signed up for it. If you need to delete
a study which already has sign-ups, you should make it Inactive instead, if you do not
want it to be visible to participants. You may not delete a study which has sign-ups, so
the option will not be presented.
If you want to delete a study that has sign-ups, please contact the administrator. The
administrator can delete a study with sign-ups, but only if the sign-ups are all without
credit values (this usually occurs when study participation history from a previous
semester was retained, but credits were zeroed out). If the study has sign-ups where the
sign-ups have (non-zero) credit values linked to them, then the administrator cannot
delete the study until all those credit grants are changed to a 0 value (or the participants
for the sign-ups are deleted). The reason for this restriction is to ensure that the credit
count for participants where they have earned credits is accurate, which means that the
studies which contributed to their credit earnings must be kept intact.
Figure 5- Deleting a Study
To delete a study, choose My Studies from top toolbar, click on the desired study, then
choose the Delete Study option. You will see a confirmation page. Choose Yes (at the
bottom of the page) to delete the study.
Once a study is deleted, it cannot be restored, so use this feature very carefully. If you
delete an online survey study, the survey and all data collected will also be deleted.
Timeslot Usage Summary
The timeslot usage summary is available when viewing your study. This gives some basic
information about timeslot utilization in the past and in the future, as well as some basic
no-show information. It also gives information on timeslots for the study by location (if
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the study is not an online survey study or external web study), and by researcher (if the
study is configured to allow researchers to be assigned to specific timeslots).
For credit studies, the system also provides a summary of how many credits were
granted. This summary accurately computes credit usage, taking into account any
variable credit grants (if Variable Credit Granting is enabled in System Settings), where
some participants may have received credit in a different amount than the study’s listed
credit value.
If timeslot usage limits are enabled, the system will provide an estimate of how many
timeslots can be added. Note that if the study is a two-part study, it will estimate based on
allocating all the limit to the first part or the second part (both estimates are provided),
however in practice it’s more likely a researcher will want to add timeslots to both parts
of the study, so this should be taken into account when viewing these estimates,
especially if the first part and second part of a study have a different duration.
Bulk Mail Summary
The system tracks whenever any type of bulk email is sent (by a user) related to the
study. This includes inviting participants based on the study’s prescreen participation
restriction analysis, or contacting those who have already signed up for the study. This
information is kept for 6 months, and it is tracked to ensure that all users follow generally
accepted Internet practices for responsible use of email. The administrator also has access
to this information.
Prescreen Participation Restrictions
If enabled on your system, the system might contain an online prescreen that participants
may (or must, depending on your system configuration) complete. You may place
participation restrictions on your study based on prescreen responses. Participants are
unaware that such restrictions are placed on the study. These restrictions are never listed
to them. If they do not qualify to participate in a study because they do not meet the
prescreen participation restrictions, then the study will simply not be listed to them. This
is important to note – participants never know why a study was or was not listed to them,
because they are unaware of the prescreen restrictions.
You may restrict a study on any question or questions on the prescreen that allowed for a
multiple-choice answer where only one choice could be selected. You may also restrict a
study based on a computed section sum or average score for a participant, if the prescreen
was set up in such a manner. You may restrict to one choice or many choices for any
question. If you restrict on multiple questions, it is the same as a logical “AND.” For
example, if you setup the prescreen restrictions so that participants must have answered
“Yes” to a “Do you wear glasses?” question and “Blue” or “Grey” to “What color are
your eyes?”, then they must meet both requirements to participate. In other words, only
participants who wear glasses and have either blue or grey eyes are eligible. There is no
support for a logical “OR” restriction across multiple questions. The restrictions are
inclusive, which means that if you select a choice as a restriction, then participants must
have answered at least one of the choices selected for each question that is part of the
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restriction in order to see and participate in the study, as opposed to exclusive where
checking the choice as a restriction would exclude them from participation.
Figure 6 - Prescreen Restrictions Question Selection
To set participation restrictions, view (do not choose edit) your study and choose
View/Modify Restrictions. You will see a list of eligible questions which you may use for
your restrictions. If the study already has some restrictions, those will be checked, and
you will see how many participants currently meet the restrictions. Choose the questions
you would like to restrict upon (and keep the existing checked restrictions checked,
unless you want to remove that restriction), and click on the Set Restrictions button. On
the subsequent page, you can select each value that is acceptable for each question you
have chosen. Once you have selected all the acceptable values, save your changes and
they will take effect immediately. It is important to note that if you change the
restrictions, it will not remove the study sign-ups for participants who qualified under the
previous set of restrictions. For this reason, you should probably decide on your
restrictions before making the study available to participants.
If you have restriction requirements where you would like to restrict participation to a
percentage of the population (for instance, the responses that were chosen by the top 25%
of people), but you are not sure which responses meet this requirement, you can use the
prescreen response analysis feature to determine the valid responses. See Prescreen
Response Analysis for more information. You may also use Analyzing Prescreen
Responses to get an idea of how many participants are potential candidates for
participation in your study, based on a specified set of restrictions.
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Figure 7 - Prescreen Response Restrictions
Inviting Qualified Participants to a Study
While viewing the list of prescreen restrictions currently set for a study, and the number
of participants who meet those restrictions, you may see the option to Invite Qualified
Participants. Using this option, you may craft an email to be sent to all qualified
participants. You may choose to exclude those who have already signed up for or
participated in any studies you specify. The system will automatically exclude all
participants who have participated or are signed up for the current study (no-shows are
not excluded though, since they may sign up again). If the study is not a research
alternative study, the system will also automatically exclude participants with Limited
accounts, as they are ineligible to participate in studies not marked as a research
alternative study.
The system will pre-fill the email text with useful information like the name of the study
and how many timeslots are currently open. You cannot include attachments in the email,
so if you have a document you would like to include, you should post it on a university
webserver and provide a link to the document in the email you send.
If you have set participation restrictions for the study based on course enrollment, those
restrictions will be taken into consideration (i.e. abided by) when determining which
participants receive the email.
There is also an option to choose a random percentage from the overall list of matching
participants to email. It is important to understand that the system does not keep track of
which random percentage of the group of matching participants is sent to each time, so
that if you send to a random 30% now, and a random 30% an hour later, it could very
well be the case that many participants receive the email on both those occasions.
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The From (sender) address on the email will be the administrator email address, which is
done to prevent the email from being blocked by junk email filters. The “Reply To”
address of the email will be that of the user who is actually sending the email, so when a
user chooses to reply to the email, the reply will be sent to that (the reply to) address.
Finally, there is an option to specify a delay in sending the email, based on the number of
hours from when the emailing option is used. This is useful if you want to target a certain
time of day (e.g., during the evenings) when the email will be sent. The emails are
generated at the time you use the emailing facility, but are stored on the server until the
specified sending time. They cannot be removed from the queue once this emailing
facility is used.
In some cases, the administrator may have imposed a limit on how many participants
may be emailed. This is often done to prevent abuse of the system, such as cases where
researchers invite too large a number of participants and this is not in accordance with
generally accepted Internet principles for sending email. If there is such a limit, the
system will look at the number of participants the researcher plans to email, and if that
number is greater than the limit, it will block the sending entirely, as opposed to sending
only enough emails up to the limit. To get around this limitation, the researcher can
further restrict who they plan to send to (perhaps choosing a smaller random percentage
of users, or more closely defined prescreen participation restrictions), or ask the
administrator to send the email for them. The administrator is not subject to such
limitations. Regardless, any use of this bulk email facility will be logged, and that
information will be kept for approximately 6 months. The administrator can easily pull up
a report of how many emails a specific researcher has sent, so is good to be careful about
not abusing this feature. In addition, Sona Systems reserves the right to temporarily
remove the right to login from a researcher if there are verifiable reports of abuse of this
feature. Typically before doing so, the administrator will be notified by Sona Systems as
it is preferred to have the administrator deal with such problems.
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Figure 8 - Contacting Qualified Participants
Viewing Your Studies
To view your studies (and not the studies of others), choose the My Studies option on the
top toolbar. The system will list all your studies in alphabetical order by study name,
grouped by studies that are active, then inactive studies.
Figure 9 - Your Studies
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Participant Study View
If you would like to see how your study appears when participants view it, find your
study and choose the Participant Study View option. This will show exactly how the
study appears to participants, with the exception that when a participant views a study,
next to each pre-requisite and disqualifier study (for a study) is listed a status indicator
about whether they have met that requirement. In Participant Study View, the prerequisite and disqualifier studies are listed, but there is no status indicator next to each
study in the list.
If for some reason you think your study is not visible to participants, it may be due to
various restrictions you have set on the study, like prescreen participation restrictions,
such that few (or none) of the participants in the pool qualify. You can ask the
administrator to use the Check Study Configuration tool (available to them when they
view your study) to provide advice on why your study may or may not be visible to
participants. Administrators there also have an option to type in a specific participant to
see if that participant would qualify for your study.
Viewing Other Studies
To view all studies that are visible to participants, choose the All Studies option from the
top toolbar.
You will see a list first of all Active studies. These studies will show up to participants on
the list of available studies. The next group of studies (if there are any) is Inactive studies.
These will not show up on the list of available studies (to participants), but participants
can access information about these individual studies on links from the page with their
progress (if they participated in the study) or if another study has the Inactive study listed
as a pre-requisite or disqualifier.
Working with Timeslots (Sessions)
Timeslots (also referred to as Sessions) are the available times when a participant may
participate in the study. If you are setting up timeslots for a web-based study, please read
the section in this documentation on Web-Based (Online) Studies for some special
information.
Timeslots allow you to specify a date, time, location, maximum number of participants,
and researcher for a session.
Timeslot Usage Restrictions
If enabled on your system, you may find there is a limit to the amount of time available
for scheduling timeslots. This usage is computed by adding up all the past timeslots
where credit was granted, and then adding all timeslots in the future, regardless of credit
status. You may find that the usage goes down over time, as time progresses and
timeslots that were in the future had no participants signing up for them. The usage and
limit is listed whenever you add a timeslot, if usage restrictions apply. It may also be
listed when you view your profile, depending on how your system is configured.
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Timeslots Linked to Specific Researchers
If your system is configured to allow multiple researchers per study, you will also have
an option to link timeslots to a specific researcher. This is done primarily for organization
purposes, and has no effect on who can view and modify the study, or any timeslots for
that study.
This feature is useful when there are a number of researchers running a study, and
researchers are responsible for running specific timeslots. If a timeslot has a specific
researchers linked to it, then only that researcher will be listed as the contact point when a
participant receives any emails related to their participation in that timeslot. Finally, only
the researcher connected to that timeslot receives related notification emails, such as
participant cancellation notification, and reminder emails (assuming such emails are
enabled).
It is also possible to have some timeslots where a specific researcher is linked to them,
and others where all researchers (who are assigned to the study) are responsible for the
timeslot. It is not possible to link more than one, but not all of the researchers (for the
study), to a specific timeslot. The options are to either link one researcher to the timeslot,
or all of them.
If a researcher is removed from a study, then any timeslots that were linked to them for
that study will be changed so all researchers (for the study) are now responsible for those
timeslots.
To use this feature, the system must be configured to allow multiple researchers per
study. Then, the study itself must be configured to allow researchers to be linked to
specific timeslots. Finally, the study must have more than one researcher connected to it.
Creating Timeslots
To add a timeslot for a study, you must first choose the study that you would like to add a
timeslot for. To view your studies, choose the My Studies option on the top toolbar. Click
on the desired study, and choose the Timeslots choice.
You will see a list of any existing timeslots, and the Add A Timeslot option at the bottom
of the page. Click on Add A Timeslot.
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Figure 10 - Adding a Timeslot
The following table lists the information you may enter about a timeslot, along with an
explanation. All fields are required.
Field
Date
Start Time
End Time
# of Participants
Location
Explanation
The date for the timeslot.
The time for the timeslot. A sample time
will be provided. If you want to change the
time, please use the same format as the
time you see presented. Note in particular
how “a.m.” and “p.m.” are handled (if such
a format is enabled on your system).
The time when the timeslot will end. This
is computed automatically based on the
duration you entered when you set up the
study.
The number of participants for this
timeslot. This limit is not visible to
participants. They will only see whether the
timeslot is full or not. The maximum
number is 999.
The physical location where the study will
take place, for this timeslot. It will be
automatically filled with the location of the
previous timeslot, when available, to ease
in data entry.
Depending on how your system is
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configured, you may see a list of preconfigured locations. You may choose any
of those locations and click on View
Schedule to see the schedule for a location.
The system will automatically prevent you
from adding a timeslot using a location that
is already in use at the time you try to
schedule the timeslot. If you do not see the
location in the list that you plan to use, you
can simply type in the location in the text
field below it.
Researcher
The location field does not apply for webbased studies.
The researcher assigned to this specific
timeslot. The list will contain a list of all
researchers for the study. Choose ALL if
all researchers (for the study) should be
assigned to this timeslot. See Timeslots
Linked to Specific Researchers for more
information.
To ease data entry, the system will automatically fill in the date, time, and location based
on the ending time of the last timeslot for this study. If applicable, your current timeslot
usage will be listed, and you will be prevented from adding a timeslot that would exceed
your timeslot usage time limit. A convenient calendar is provided next to the form, and
you can click on any date and that date will be transferred to the form.
If you add a timeslot such that there is another timeslot (for any study) that occurs in the
same time, at the same location, you will receive a warning (but the addition will be
allowed). If you add a timeslot that will take place outside of normal hours (for example,
at 1:00am), the system will provide a warning but will allow it to be scheduled. You may
not schedule a timeslot to occur after the IRB expiration date for your study, if Strict IRB
mode is enabled by the administrator. The system allows adding timeslots to a study that
is not available to participants (not active or not approved), but it will give a warning
because participants are not able to sign up for the timeslot.
If you are running a web-based (online study), you should create a single timeslot with
the participation deadline equal to the last day you would like to run the study. For
number of participants, specify the maximum number of participants who may
participate. If you are running a web-based study and you plan to collect data from more
than 999 participants (999 is the maximum allowed in one timeslot), then once that
timeslot is close to filling up, create a second timeslot as a slightly different time and/or
date as the first timeslot.
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Creating Multiple Timeslots
If you would like to add multiple timeslots at once, choose the Add Multiple Timeslots
link. You may choose to add a specified number of timeslots, or copy the timeslots from
another week to a specified week. If you choose to copy, the system will copy the time,
location, and number of participants for the specified week to the desired week, for each
day of that week (starting with Monday).
If you choose to create a specified number of timeslots, you can choose the number of
timeslots you would like to add, the start time and date, and the amount of time between
each timeslot (to allow for breaks). You also may specify that timeslots that would occur
outside normal business hours be shifted to the next business day, and specify when
business hours occur. The system considers Monday-Friday to be business days.
On the subsequent page, you may change any of it to deal with special cases. Timeslots
that you attempt to add, that either have errors or would result in exceeding the timeslot
time usage limit, will not be added. This feature is not available for web-based (online)
studies, as web-based studies rarely have more than one timeslot.
If you would do not want to add a specific timeslot that is listed, choose No in the Add
This Timeslot? Column.
Figure 11 - Creating Multiple Timeslots
Modifying and Deleting Timeslots
To modify or delete a timeslot for a study, you must first choose the study that you would
like to deal with. To view your studies, choose the My Studies link from the top toolbar.
Choose the Timeslots option in the timeslots column for the desired study. You will see a
list of all recent timeslots. Recent timeslots in the past with no participants signed up will
not be displayed. To work with timeslots more than a few days old and to see all
timeslots, you will see a link to view all timeslots for the study. Select the timeslot you
would like to deal with, and click the Modify button.
If the timeslot has no participants signed up for it, you will see a Delete button. You may
not delete a timeslot that has participants signed up for it. If you would like to delete the
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timeslot, click the Delete button, and you will see a confirmation page. Choose Delete
again to delete the timeslot.
If you would like to modify the timeslot, modify the desired information and click the
Update button just below the timeslot information. It should be noted that participants
will not be notified (by email) of any changes you make to the timeslot, so you should
contact them if information needs to be passed on to them (a link is provided on the same
page to do so). If you change the date or time of the timeslot, you will be warned that this
was changed in case the change was unintended. You may not update the size of the
timeslot (number of participants) to a value lower than the current number of participants
signed up for the timeslot. Generally, researchers only update timeslots with sign-ups to
update the location, if it was not available when the timeslot was originally created.
If the study (or researcher) is subject to timeslot time usage restrictions, the system will
enforce them and prevent you from increasing the number of participants in a timeslot if
that would result in exceeding the timeslot usage limit.
Timeslot Change Tracking
The system automatically tracks certain changes that occur with a timeslot, including any
time key information about the timeslot (date, time, etc.) is changed, as well as any time a
manual sign-up or cancellation is performed (i.e., not a sign-up or cancellation done by
the participant). This information is tracked for the last 3 months of changes for each
timeslot.
To view this information, choose the View Timeslot Modification Log when viewing a
timeslot, and you will see this information.
Deleting Multiple Timeslots
If you would like to delete multiple timeslots at once, you may do that as well. Such a
feature is only available for timeslots which have no participants signed up. To do so,
select the desired experiment and choose Timeslots. At the bottom of the Timeslots page,
you will see a Delete Multiple Timeslots option. The option may not appear in certain
cases where such an option is not available because of a lack of available timeslots to
delete.
After going to that page, you will see a list of timeslots eligible for deletion. Choose the
timeslots you would like to delete, and choose Delete Selected Timeslots to proceed. If
you would like to delete all empty timeslots, there is a Select All option at the bottom of
this page that will automatically select all timeslots listed on the page for deletion. Click
the Reset button to revert the effect of choosing the Select All option.
The system routinely deletes all empty timeslots more than 3 months old to preserve
database space.
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Figure 12 - Delete Multiple Timeslots
Manual Sign-Up
If enabled on your system, you may manually sign up participants for your study. There
are a number of situations where this is desirable. If the participant happens to show up
for a timeslot they were not signed up for, and you elect to let them participate, you can
sign them up on the spot for the timeslot. The participant in many cases cannot sign up on
their own in this situation, because the sign-up deadline has passed. You may also sign up
a participant for a study that has already occurred, if necessary.
Also, a manual sign-up overrides any restrictions you have placed on the study (e.g. prerequisites), though you will be warned if you are overriding any restrictions. You may not
sign up a participant for the same timeslot that they are already signed up for. You are
allowed to sign them up for a study even if they are already signed up for a different
timeslot for that same study, though you will receive a warning in this case. You may not
sign up a participant for a study if it would cause them to exceed their maximum credit
limit. If it is necessary to do so, please ask the administrator to do this, as they are
allowed to do a manual sign-up even when it will violate maximum credit earning limits.
You also may not sign up a participant whose account is Limited, if your study is not a
research alternative study, as those participants are ineligible for your study (the
administrator can still do this).
If the system is configured as such, the participant will receive a confirmation email
when you sign them up for a study. In that case, you are also given the option to enter
comments to be included in this email that may better explain to the participant why they
were signed up. If you are signing up a participant for a timeslot more than one year old,
a confirmation will not be sent despite the system configuration. This is to make it easier
30
when transitioning from an existing system, as you may sign up old participants for the
purposes of preventing them from signing up for the same study again in Sona. You may
only sign up participants for your own study.
To sign up a participant for a timeslot, you must first find the desired study and timeslot.
To view your studies, choose the My Studies option from the top toolbar. Click on
Timeslots for the desired study, then select the timeslot you would like to deal with, and
click the Modify button.
At the bottom of the page, you will see a Manual Sign-Up option, if it is enabled. Type in
the participant’s User ID (you may have to ask them for this) and click Sign Up. If
enabled, you may also choose to sign up a participant using their unique ID code. You
may also have the choice to enter their last name and choose from a list of participants. In
all cases, after submitting the form, you will see a confirmation page that also lists any
restrictions on the study. Choose Sign Up to complete the sign-up.
Figure 13 - Manual Sign-Up Confirmation
If you are subject to timeslot time usage restrictions, the system will enforce them and
prevent you from signing up a participant in the timeslot if that would result in exceeding
your timeslot usage limit.
If you are doing a manual sign-up for a two-part study, you must do a manual sign-up for
each part separately. The system will overlook the scheduling range restrictions as well.
You cannot use the manual sign-up feature for online survey studies, because the sign-up
for the study is integrated with the administration of the survey.
The manual sign-up feature will not appear for a researcher if the study requires approval
by the administrator and it has not yet been approved. This is to ensure sign-ups cannot
occur for a study that has not yet been approved, since research should not take place
prior to approval.
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Manual Cancellation
If enabled on your system, you may have the opportunity to cancel a participant’s signup. You may only cancel sign-ups that are in a No Action Taken state. To cancel a signup, find the desired timeslot and participant, and click Cancel next to their name. The
participant will be sent an email about the cancellation (and who performed it), along
with a confirmation code, and their sign-up will be immediately cancelled. The
administrator may also receive a copy of this cancellation email, depending on how the
system is configured.
You may cancel all participants for the same timeslot at one time, when applicable. The
option will appear below the list of signups, in cases where there are two or more
participants signed up for the timeslot who are eligible for cancellation (No Action Taken
state).
Figure 14 - Manual Cancellation
Viewing the Participant List
To view the list of participants who have signed up for your study, you must first select
the study and timeslot you wish to see. To view your studies, choose the My Studies
option from the top toolbar. Click on the Edit link in the timeslots column for the desired
study, then select the timeslot you would like to see, and click the Modify button.
The list of participants, along with their email addresses, will be listed. If ID codes are
enabled, you will only see an ID code and no name or email address for each participant,
and the list will be sorted by ID code.
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Figure 15 - Modifying a Timeslot / Participant List
Granting or Revoking Credit
At the completion of a session, you should promptly deal with the participants, in the
system, to ensure proper credit grants. The reason for the prompt handling of this
situation is in the event your study is a pre-requisite for another study, and a few other
situations. You do not want to hold up other studies that are waiting on your response to
the study you just ran.
To grant or revoke credit for a timeslot, you must first find the desired study and timeslot.
To view your studies, choose the My Studies option from the top toolbar. Click on the
Edit link in the timeslots column for the desired study, then select the timeslot you would
like to see, and click the Modify button.
You will see a list of participants, identified either by name or ID code. If the participant
properly participated in the study, click the Credit Granted button next to their name (this
text may appear as Participated if the study is set up for payment).
If the participant did not appear for the timeslot, you may choose to mark their no-show
as excused or unexcused. Depending on how your system is configured, an unexcused
no-show may result in a penalty being assessed for the participant (the system will
compute this automatically), or their privileges to use the system may be restricted. You
should ask your administrator for guidelines about when to grant an excused no-show or
an unexcused no-show. Generally, excused no-shows are granted for extenuating
circumstances, like if the participant was involved in a car accident on their way to the
appointment. An unexcused no-show is generally used when the participant did not show
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up and had no reasonable excuse. For most schools, the majority of no-shows are
unexcused and are due to carelessness on the part of participants.
Depending on how your system is configured, you may see an option to grant a credit
value that is different from the standard credit grant. This is useful when you want to
grant a participant a lower credit value because they left the study early (if they deserve a
lower credit grant), or a higher credit value if the study ran longer than expected. The
default value that is selected is the study’s standard credit value. If this is enabled, then
you may also grant 0 credits. This is useful if you do not want to grant credits to the
participant, but you also want to prevent them from participating in the study again. If a
participant is granted 0 credits, and the study is set to prevent duplicate sign-ups, then the
participant will not be able to sign up for that study again.
If desired, enter any comments about the session in the Comments section (generally, this
is used to indicate the reason for denying credit). Participants will see anything you enter
in the Comments section for their sign-up, and these comments will be included in the
email sent to participants when a credit grant/revocation occurs, if notification emails are
enabled on your system.
Click on the Update Sign-Ups button at the bottom of the list of sign-ups to save your
changes. Credit will be granted or a penalty assessed as necessary. The participant(s) will
be emailed about this if the system is configured in such a manner.
It is not recommended to leave any sign-up for a timeslot that has occurred in the “No
Action Taken” stage. This is a credit “limbo” and the system will warn you upon your
next login about the offending timeslot that has not been dealt with properly. Note that if
Manual Cancellation is enabled and you would like to cancel a participant’s sign-up, the
sign-up must be in No Action Taken state.
Depending on how your system is configured, the system may automatically grant credit
to participants for timeslots that are more than an administrator-specified number of
hours old, and where the researcher has taken no action. You can always change the
automatic credit grant later if it was in error. The automatic credit grant takes place once
a day, usually overnight. Your administrator can let you know if such a feature is enabled
on your system.
If you need to do a simple credit grant across many timeslots, see the Uncredited
Timeslots section which offers such a feature.
Batch Credit Granting
In some cases, you may wish to automatically sign up and immediately credit a group of
participants. This is often useful if you administered a study on an ad-hoc basis, and you
want to credit participants after the fact.
To do so, go to the appropriate timeslot (you may want to create a timeslot specifically
for this purpose), and click on Modify Timeslot. In the Manual Sign-Up section (if
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enabled), you will see a Batch Credit Grant link. Click that and you can provide the list of
User IDs of users you would like to sign up and credit. Users will be signed up and
credited immediately. This feature overrides any sign-up restrictions on the study, just as
a normal manual sign-up does.
Figure 16 - Batch Credit Grant
The batch credit grant feature will not appear for a researcher if the study requires
approval by the administrator and it has not yet been approved. This is to ensure sign-ups
cannot occur for a study that has not yet been approved.
If you are signing up a participant for a timeslot more than one year old, a sign-up
confirmation will not be sent despite the system configuration. This is to make it easier
when transitioning from an existing system, as you may sign up old participants for the
purposes of preventing them from signing up for the same study again in Sona.
Emailing Participants
If you wish to contact participants in a particular timeslot for any reason, you may click
on the Contact link that will appear next to each participant’s name (or ID code) to
contact an individual participant. To email the group of participants for a particular
timeslot, click the Contact All Participants choice at the bottom of the Modify Timeslot
page for that timeslot.
You will be taken to a page where you can fill out a message that the system will send to
the selected participants. The message is auto-filled with some basic information about
the study, so participants are aware of which study you are referring to. You may remove
this information if desired. You may choose to receive a copy of the email that you send.
Depending on how your system is configured, participants may already be receiving a
reminder about upcoming studies the day before they are scheduled to participate. Ask
your administrator for more information.
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Figure 17 - Contacting Participants
In some cases, you may find it useful to contact all participants for the study, across all
timeslots. This feature may be particularly useful if you are sending debriefing
information when a study has concluded. To do so, go to My Studies, click Study Info.
next to the desired study, and choose the Contact Participants option. You will then be
able to select which group of participants to send to, and a message to send. Messages
will be sent in groups of 300 (or less, depending on how your system is configured) to
avoid overloading email servers. You cannot include attachments in the email, so if you
have a document you would like to include, you should post it on a university webserver
and provide a link to the document in the email you send.
Figure 18 - Contact Participants
The From (sender) address on the email will be the administrator email address, which is
done to prevent the email from being blocked by junk email filters. The “Reply To”
address of the email will be that of the user who is actually sending the email, so when a
user chooses to reply to the email, the reply will be sent to that (the reply to) address.
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There is also the option to restrict the emails so they only go to participants who signed
up for timeslots in a specified date range. The date range is based on the date of the
timeslot, not when the participant signed up for, completed, or received credit for the
study.
Finally, there is an option to specify a delay in sending the email, based on the number of
hours from when the emailing option is used. This is useful if you want to target a certain
time of day (e.g., during the evenings) when the email will be sent. The emails are
generated at the time you use the emailing facility, but are stored on the server until the
specified sending time. They cannot be removed from the queue once this emailing
facility is used.
In most cases, summary information about the email you sent, and in particular to how
many recipients it was sent to, will be logged and made available to the administrator.
This is done to ensure there is no abuse of the email facility in the system, in compliance
with generally accepted Internet practices for sending emails.
Viewing Uncredited Timeslots
When you login to the system, you will receive a warning if you have any timeslots that
are more than 2 days old and haven’t been dealt with. You may view a list of all timeslots
that have not been dealt with by choosing the View Uncredited Timeslots option from the
My Studies page. The default view will show in-person studies with timeslots in the past,
as well as all uncredited timeslots for online studies. Timeslots for online studies,
including those in the future, are always considered in need of a response. See the WebBased (Online) Studies section of this documentation for more information.
If you would like to do a simple credit grant (standard credit grant, no comments), you
may do so directly from this page. Select the desired sign-ups/timeslots, and then choose
Grant Credits. The action may take a short time to complete, so please be patient while
the credit grants are processed.
If you need to do something more complex, like mark a no-show, add comments, or
perform a special credit grant with a non-standard credit amount, you can easily click on
the timeslot’s date and time, and go directly to that timeslot.
In cases where a study has timeslots linked to specific researchers, you will see the
warning only for timeslots that are specifically linked to you, or to everyone in the study
(i.e., not timeslots linked to someone else in the study). However, when you view
uncredited timeslots, you will see all uncredited timeslots for your studies, even if
someone else is linked to one of the timeslots for your study. This is done to make it
easier to give your fellow researchers (for your studies) assistance in dealing with
uncredited timeslots.
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Figure 19 - Uncredited Timeslots
Why do I have to acknowledge the Human Subjects Policy?
Certain regulations and research guidelines either require or recommend it. You only
need to do it once every 6 months, so it should not be too intrusive. You will not be asked
to acknowledge the policy if this feature is disabled by your administrator.
What is the best way to setup a study where participants receive monetary compensation?
You may set it up as a pay study only (indication a compensation amount), or a credit
study if it is for both pay and credits. See the Studies for Pay section of this
documentation for more information.
I want to set up a study so that participants can choose to receive credit or payment. How
do I set this up?
Set it up as a study for credit, and note in the study description that participants may opt
to receive payment instead, and they should notify the researcher of this when they come
to their appointment. If the participant at that time chooses to receive monetary
compensation, the researcher should grant credit, but mark the credit as 0 credits
(Variable Credit Granting must be enabled in System Settings by the administrator), and
then note in the comments for the timeslot that payment was received.
The monetary compensation a participant receives for a study depends on decisions they
make during the study. How do I indicate this?
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You must enter one value when setting up the study, so enter the minimum payment
value (or 0) or whatever you feel is appropriate, and then note in the study description the
entire range of compensation that is possible.
I want a participant to participate in an upcoming session, but the system says it is too
late for them to sign up. What do I do?
If enabled, you can perform a manual sign-up. See the Manual Sign-Up section of this
documentation. If not enabled, your administrator can still perform a manual sign-up.
Where are email notifications to me sent?
Email notifications (e.g. sign-up notices) are sent to either an address derived from your
user ID or your alternate email address. See the Email Address Options section of this
documentation for more information.
How do I deal with dyads?
A dyad is a study which requires a pair of people to participate, but often the second
participant is not a “real” participant, but rather a colleague of the researcher who is
“colluding” with the researcher as part of the study itself.
You do not need to deal with dyads in the system itself. Participants cannot see how
many people have signed up for a timeslot, nor how many spaces are available for a
timeslot. So, your “fake” participant can just act like a real participant and the real
participant will be unaware of this.
I have finished running my study. What should I do?
So it does not clutter the list of studies for participants, you should make the study
Inactive. See the Updating a Study section of this documentation for more information.
Who has access to my studies?
All users can see the information about your studies and the available timeslots.
Administrators, the principal investigator (if applicable) and the researchers for the study
are the only people who can see who has signed up, and modify the study.
Regulatory Compliance Guidelines
Introduction
This software complies with all major regulations governing human subject research and
privacy of data stored online. The system complies with both HIPAA and Common Rule
for customers in the United States. For customers in Canada, it complies with the
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act as well as the Tri-Council
Statement. For customers in the European Union or in countries that follow OECD rules,
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it complies with OECD privacy rules and the European Union Directive of Data
Protection. Your organization may or may not need to comply with the relevant
regulations. Your subject pool administrator can advise you on this situation.
Even if you are not required to comply, compliance is still a good idea, as protecting
sensitive data is always a good thing. Compliance in the context of this system is as
simple as reading the remaining paragraphs of this section (that apply to your
organization) and following the guidelines contained therein. The remaining compliance
issues involving software, privacy and electronic data storage are all handled
automatically by the software. You should still consult with your IRB or organization to
learn about additional compliance rules you must follow outside of use of this software
(the handling of the data you collect during your study would be one example).
Some regulations (particularly the US HIPAA regulations) are focused primarily on
health data. You may think the system does not store confidential health data (in HIPAA
terms, it is called PHI -- Protected Health Information), but depending on how your
organization uses the software, there may very well be confidential data in the system.
Consider the case of a study that requires that a participant come from a family that has a
history of mental illness. Merely knowing who signed up for that study can be considered
confidential because that type of information should not be revealed to the public. It may
turn out that your studies are not of such a nature, but even more benign situations, like a
study that requires that participants be regular contact lens wearers, can be construed as
confidential information. Organizations typically err on the side of caution given the
criminal and civil penalties for violation of these types of regulations.
Data Handling and Security Guidelines
In your role, you have access to your studies and you can see who has signed up for those
studies. You may also have access to prescreen responses. Because of these privileges,
you should follow these simple guidelines:
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
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Secure Your Account. Use a password that is difficult to guess. The most secure
passwords contain a combination of letters and numbers, do not spell a real word,
and are at least 8 characters long. Your university IT department can provide you
with assistance on choosing a secure password.
Secure Your Work Area. If you are logged into the system and you leave your
computer, you should logout of the system or use a password lock on your
computer. Ask your network administrator for help with setting up a password
lock.
Handle Paper Documents Carefully. Any printouts from the system should be
kept reasonably secure. Store them in desk drawer out of the public view.
Documents you decide to discard should be shredded if possible.
Human Subjects/Privacy Policy Acknowledgment
Upon your first login to the system, and every 6 months thereafter, you may be required
to acknowledge your organization’s policy on these matters, and this acknowledgement
will be logged. Ask your subject pool administrator if you have any questions.
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